> Many if not most career politicians have education in their domain

They don't have "domains", they are career politicians. It is nice when a politician has some experience in the topic they're legislating on but the system works by having generalists who bow in whatever direction winds are blowing the most money from.

It is not possible to be an effective career politician by having firm principles or technical expertise. It requires a near total dedication to politicking. If they happen to have knowledge of a topic it is coincidence because the number of political topics is large and the number of politicians is comparatively small.

That would be news to me. Which country are you referring to?

Can you remind me why Yvette Cooper [1], who's been trained as an Economist, is Secretary for Health and Social Care, after being Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary?

Literally the first name I clicked on from the UK government.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvette_Cooper

But saying the conclusion seems out of touch, but it's not necessarily limited to STEM formatted people. Everyone and their dogs think they have the most apt representation and whoever disagree ever miss information or the ability to act accordingly.

Honestly, its not the hubris. Politicians are a pretty arrogant group of people. Its the lack of life experience and lessons learned from negative consequences that they lack. The hubris just makes it more galling and thus makes for better sound bites.

Definitely not my experience in academia, mostly small mini czardoms who can't stand and won't speak to their competitors. Often engaged in ancient blood feuds with the person two doors down. Add a dash of corruption in publishing and citing each others works while excluding those they disagree with etc.

Well, you can have certain differences of opinion as long as they're "acceptable" opinions. Academia ousts those who don't fit into its culture. Tenure is the only way you can express your real opinion without reprisal, though you may still be socially outcast for having the "wrong" opinion - and those who make it this far are predominantly products of that same culture - their opinions align with their peers on what is deemed acceptable. The anointed.

It is still quite tribal, with whole mutually hostile clans that stem from a particular professor or workplace. Plus the economy of academy tends to be quite zero-sum.

Also, the US academy specifically cares about your race a lot.

It's more the kind of deciding how to spend other people's money.

Both government and academia know how to navigate this well - by avoiding accountability.

Some character traits that are useful to academics are useful to politicians; others are kinda the opposite of what politicians need.

Intelligence? Problem solving? Understanding statistics? Speaking in front of rooms full of people? Communicating complex ideas clearly? Useful for both jobs.

But an academic can be bookish, shy or haughty. Pursuing your own ideas is actively encouraged. There are arguments - but the main audience for the debates are other academics. They needn't collaborate on research with anyone they don't want to, and when they do collaborate everyone has the same destination in mind even if they disagree about the route to get there. When dealing with students, they've all chosen to be there, passed exams and paid money. The work is mostly low-medium stakes, with time to get important things right. And of course they have excellent job security.

Politicians, though? Gotta love campaigning and talking to voters. Gotta all get together behind the party's national platform. Even colleagues in your party are rivals because everyone wants the top job. 'Debates' all about playing to the audience and getting 3-second soundbites for social media, not engaging with the substance of arguments. No choice in who you collaborate with, including people with deep-seated disagreements about things like tax, debt, spending. Gotta represent voters many of whom hate you. Do well at the job and high stakes things you didn't even do get blamed on you, like train crashes and oil markets getting expensive. Oh, and every 4-5 years you're fired and get to re-apply for your job.

I think we have people who are highly intelligent and still unable to navigate social situations. Neurodivergents are not uncommon in academics.

> * Everyone is quick to make judgement on something they don't know all the details of. > [snip]

I don't know how large the HN reader base is, but at the time of writing there are 309 comments on this story. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the HN reader base is quite likely significantly larger than 309 people, presumably by several orders of magnitude. As such, the vast majority of readers ("overwhelmingly intellectuals") have indeed decided not to make a any judgement on this thing they don't know all the details of.

While in absolute terms things can almost always get worse.

Situation has been so bad with Vučić and his political party SNS - systematic corruption, private profiteering with iron grip on media and legislation, security services... etc.

So in that sense - even doing nothing would probably turn out better than continuing with the previous levels of intentional corruption.

And while there might be some things done by previous government that (accidentally) turned out good and are worth keeping.

For a lot of things (e.g. various institutions that lost their independence in the last ~20 years) - the rough WIP roadmap/plan can be as simple as "Undo or do the opposite from what the previous government did".